The invention relates to improvements in machines used for automatically packing articles such as bakery goods and the like in bags. It refers more particularly to the provision of an arrangement for providing a substantially constant supply of bags at the bagging station for the machine.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 3,492,780, issued Feb. 3, 1970, a bagging machine of the general character for which the present invention is intended is disclosed. The machine of the patent is equipped with a bagging station at which is located a stack of bags placed atop one another on a bag support plate. As the product is moved through the bagging station, it is directed into the topmost bag on the stack and the bag is then stripped from the stack to ready another bag for reception of the next arriving product. In due course the stack of bags is emptied, which necessitates the installation of a new stack so that operations may continue.
In my aforesaid prior patent I provided an arrangement in which it was possible to locate a standby stack of bags adjacent the bagging station in position to be moved into the bagging station upon depletion of the bags in the operative stack. However, the arrangement was manual, required access to both sides of the machine for loading the standby stack and had no arrangement for determining when the operative stack was exhausted other than by visual monitoring.
One of the principal objects of the present invention is to provide an arrangement wherein several bag stacks can be located in position to be successively fed into the bagging station as the stack which precedes it is exhausted. A feature of the invention in this respect is that all of the standby stacks are located on one side only of the machine thus making it possible to place the bagging machine closely adjacent a wall or one another and permitting an attendant to confine his operations to one side only of the machine.
Another object of the invention is to provide a bag supply system in which the feeding of successive stacks of bags into the bagging station is automatic. I provide as part of my invention a bag supply control system which is operative to cause immediate replacement of an exhausted stack without requiring the assistance of a worker.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a bag supply system which is capable of holding a large supply of bags in standby condition and which makes it possible to make long product runs without restoring the bag supply.
A further object of the invention is to provide a bag supply system in which means are included for automatically interrupting the supply of product to the bagging station while a standby stack is in transition from the standby to operative position. This feature insures that no product will be fed toward the bagging station unless a bag is in correct position to receive it.
Other and further objects of the invention, together with the features of novelty appurtenant thereto, will appear in the course of the following description.